How Exactly Is Uber "Disrupting" an Industry?

“For the first time in 30 years, New Yorkers could get a cab
without going to the street and putting your arm out,” startup Uber
wrote yesterday, in the course of admitting they are
shutting down their NYC pilot program. (Also, this is only true
if you mean yellow cabs; in most of the City, people been calling
for car services their whole lives.) Don’t worry, you can use Uber
in “more innovation-friendly cities,” they snidely sign off. (Cue
Mike Bloomberg breaking a lamp and vowing revenge.) Yes, the
INNOVATORS—with $50 million in venture capital—have met the
“obsolete cash cow” and the long arm of “regulation.” What will
become of “the cause”? Hey wait, what “cause” is this? I’m not a
huge fan of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, but this is not a
particularly good time in the history of the world to be against
regulation. (Airlines; banking; prisons; hospitals; oh, “the
environment.) If you want to “disrupt” the taxi industry in New
York, you could maybe take up as a “cause” that livery drivers went
on strike the other week because they’re being treated like garbage
by NYC 2-Way, the company that rents them out to the likes of
Goldman Sachs. Will “being able to get a cab from your iPhone”
improve taxi drivers’ lives? “MAYBE,” agrees the taxi drivers
union. Would actually disrupting the actual industry actually
improve their lives? For sure. For $50 million, you could open a
lot of cab companies in a lot of cities and treat drivers well. But
this isn’t about actual industry disruption: it’s about disrupting
the customer experience, and then about Uber making money. A fine
American principle! But let’s not be confused that they’re
disrupting on behalf of anything other than a business model.